This invention relates to an apparatus for successively stacking a predetermined number of coins and packaging the successive stacks of coins. The invention is more specifically directed to improved means, in such a coin packaging apparatus, for separately discharging the correctly stacked and packaged coins and the stray or loose coins that may be produced during the transition of the stacked coins from stacking to packaging means and during the subsequent packaging thereof.
In the coin packaging apparatus of the type in question each preselected number of coins are successively dropped into and stacked in a tubular, upstanding, open-top stacking cylinder. The bottom end of this stacking cylinder is openably closed by a pair of coplanar gate plates movable into and out of contact with each other. The gate plates open upon completion of each stacking operation, thereby depositing the stack of coins on a coin carrier capable of vertical reciprocation. The coin carrier carries the coin stack down to the packaging station of the apparatus, where the coin stack is packaged with a strip of wrapper paper or the like.
One or more coins, however, may fall off the coin carrier when the coin stack is deposited thereon from the gate plates. Coins may also slide off the rest of the stack when it is being carried down to the packaging station, no matter how slowly and steadily the coin carrier is lowered to minimize the shock exerted on the coins. The coin packaging apparatus, as heretofore constructed, has allowed such stray coins to be chuted into the same receptacle as the proper packages of coins. It has therefore been necessary to manually divide the contents of the receptacle into the packaged and the loose coins.